


What Is Good In Life?

by alex_greene



Category: Traveler, Traveller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-22
Updated: 2012-05-22
Packaged: 2017-11-05 20:17:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/410589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alex_greene/pseuds/alex_greene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain Vern Altair is the new Master of the Friday, a 1000-ton Free Liner. He wakes up next to an unknown woman who claims to be the Captain's Woman of the former owner - and she's pregnant.</p><p>As if that wasn't bad enough, she has worse news still. But Vern Altair is, if nothing else, a very quick thinker ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Is Good In Life?

What is good in life?

It feels good to wake up to the sound and feel of the deckplates underneath me, and the hum of the atmo processors, and to know that I am home.

At least, that is how it feels to me, because I own this rust bucket I'm flying. Me, Captain Vern Altair, Master and owner of the thousand ton Free Liner _Friday_. You won't recognise her as that - I haven't had a chance to spray the new name and markings on her hull, only to scrape the old name off.

I called her  _Friday_ because, by the old reckoning, that was the day I won her in a bet. Admittedly, the game was very high stakes and the losing Captain was very, very drunk.

'What day is it today?' I mumbled, propping myself up in bed and looking around.

'Saturday,' said the voice beside me. I looked around. Black, curly hair, gorgeous olive skin, possibly Terran, definitely naked, all woman. She came with the boat, apparently. Captain's Woman, or so I'm told.

'Munro,' I said. 'Your name is Munro. And you're the … navigator?'

'Scarpelli,' she said, getting up. 'Chief Engineer and occasional purser.'

'So why the hell am I thinking of a “Munro”?'

'That'd be the last Captain's name,' Scarpelli replied. 'If I ever find him again, I'll kick his ass for doing this to me.'

'Doing what?'

'You thought you've won the lotto, haven't you?' Scarpelli said, turning to face me. 'What were you, night before last?'

'Gentleman of leisure,' I replied.

'Yeah, right. Drifter, traveller, no-good bum, doing the spaceship shuffle and looking for jobs anywhere you could find them. Even honest ones. Long as they paid off, right?'

'Uh, yeah,' I replied.

'Thought so.' Scarpelli sighed. 'You weren't to know. You didn't win the bet. Captain Munro threw the game.'

'Why the hell would he do that?'

'Because we're haemorrhaging money,' Scarpelli said, 'and the passengers aren't coming, and …' She paused.

'And?'

'I told him two nights ago,' Scarpelli said. 'I'm pregnant.'

  
  


Fine time to find out that the Captain's Woman is pregnant; right in the middle of Jump.

'Why would he do that?' I asked Scarpelli, as we strolled along D corridor towards Engineering. I couldn't stop fidgeting.

'Cheap uniforms,' Scarpelli said. 'You get used to them, or you buy yourself long underwear as we all did.'

'Yes, the crew,' I said, running a finger under my collar. 'About them, I … I was broke when I won the ship. Something about pay day …'

'Don't worry about that,' Scarpelli said. 'I dug into Munro's private stash of expensive liqueurs to pay for their wages for the month.'

'Good,' I replied.

'Which doesn't cover last night,' Scarpelli said. 'I said I haven't got my own cot, so we're sleeping together this week – but the moment we reach our destination, I quit. You're on your own.'

'Diamondhead? You're getting off at Diamondhead?'

'Got a problem with that?'

'I was thinking that … How much money do we have in the coffers anyway?'

'None,' Scarpelli replied, opening the iris hatch into Engineering.

'We're broke?'

'Except for the cargo,' Scarpelli said, 'and we can't exactly sell that either.'

'Why?'

  
  


I looked at the cages, and their contents, and said something rude.

'Slaves,' I said. 'There's a slave market on Diamondhead?'

'Captain Munro said he'd get top rate,' Scarpelli said. 'Turns out he's stiffed the marketeers, too. Sold out to the cops. They'll probably wait dockside to nab us, the moment we set down. But don't tell the crew. They don't even know what the cargo is.'

'Do they have rations?' I asked.

'I don't think that was on Munro's mind.'

I swore again. 'So,' I said, 'I've got this ship that's broke, a crew that needs to be fed, and oh, by the way, we're going to get booked for hauling slaves, and my purser and chief engineer, who's pregnant, just quit on me.'

'That's about it.'

'Tell me it gets worse.'

'Do you want it to?'

I shook my head.

'The ship's six months past its last maintenance,' Scarpelli said. 'This might be a Misjump. Chances are, we could end up as a spray of photons anyway.'

I groaned. Then I thought of something.

'We carrying passengers?'

'Not right now.'

'Assemble the crew,' I said. 'The crew mess hall.'

  
  


So we put down at Diamondhead, and the security forces were waiting for us to disembark so they could nab us. We barely made it intact anyway.

And I sent out our new crew. All thirty of them, cleaned, pressed, washed, dressed in the ship's scratchy overalls. All of them, having volunteered for working passage in mid flight. Scarpelli'd got their papers back to them, shredding the slave documents. We'd lost 200,000 credits on this, but rather that than lose twenty years of freedom.

We'd scrubbed every deck of the  _Friday_ till every surface gleamed, working tirelessly in our long johns or nude. And on the second day of our stay in Diamondhead, I opened the doors of the  _Friday_ for passengers.

“Nude Tours Welcomes Adult Couples!” the hastily-written sign read. “Once Around The System And Back In A Week!”

With Scarpelli and one of the former cargo, a pretty blonde with a talent for computers, sitting in front of the cargo entrance sunbathing nude, how could anyone possibly resist?

We left Diamondhead with thirty tons of cargo, every stateroom packed with nude tourists, and Scarpelli counting a pile of money in the purser's office. I've always been good at thinking on my feet.

She has her cot. It happens to be shared with the Captain. Her choice.

And each morning, I wake up and I realise just what is good in life.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Based on Marc W Miller's science fiction roleplaying game Traveller: Science Fiction Adventures In The Far Future.


End file.
